random daddy & deacon pics

Ugandan Orphans Choir video

empty nest...

The house is so quiet...This past weekend we hosted some kids with the Ugandan Orphan's Choir. We had Ivan, Sunday, Isaac, and their sponsor Jamil at our home. They left about an hour ago. Also, Deacon is at his first day of Mother's Day Out (which for me will be mother's day in b/c the house is a wreck after the Ugandan invasion!!). I'm sure Deacon is having fun with all his new friends and teachers. I'm having fun cleaning! YAY!!!


Here are our Ugandan buddies having fun with photobooth!!! They were great kids!!!

Deacon and Mommy before going to school!

Driving to school and Deacon wondering, "Why am I wearing shoes???"

Deacon and Ms. Dwanna.

Random pic of his- "I don't know who made that bad smell!" -look

And we went to our friend Seth's 1st bday and Deacon hit him in the head and made Seth cry. Happy Birthday!!

pics...

i had a throw away camera and here are some the cute pics i caught.

birthday...

I'm about to print out Deacon's b-day invites. His birthday is September 27, 2006. This date is based on speculation. Deacon and his buddy were found on October 27, 2006 and the police or orphanage guessed they were one month old. So, by subtracting his age from date found, we get 9/27. We've been sticking with this and since we havn't completed the re-adotion here yet, it doesn't make a difference....We can change his birthdate on his birth certificate that we'll get in the re-adopt I beleive....

BUT, now I'm trying to get Deacon into some mother's-day-outs and they have the same rule as Texas public schools...Must be one by Sept. 1 to enroll in the 12 month old classes. Now, I'm considering bumping his birthday back to August 27...Which would be today! I've consulted with some teacher friends about what happens when Deacon goes to Kindergarten and they think that boys do better when they are older in the class....so don't worry that he'll turn 6 the first month of kindergarten.

BUT, see previous post about Deacon's apparent geniusness, and now I'm conflicted...What do I do????? I sometimes think that since he is in the bottom of the percentiles on height and weight that he may be a little older... Come on readers, give me some advice!!!!

***UPDATE: See comment section for the dialogue!!!!

all american baby

I know we shouldn't have, but the other night we took dinner to Clayton at church and I got Deacon his first Happy Meal. He liked it! He sat on his food more than he put it in his mouth. He is getting his top teeth in right now! I can feel the left top tooth already!!! He is growing like a weed! I'm already buying 12-18 month stuff b/c I'd rather it be a little baggy now and last longer than it fit now and he grow out of it in 2 months! Here are some pics from the happy meal experience!

Actually, this one is just from random...I think we were heading out to church one morning. I think I look a little sinister.

Here is our McDonalds picnic...



And here he is playing with Aunt Kelly who is in the states for a short time before returning to Japan!

Harvard, Class of 2025

I think Deacon may be a genius.

Tonight, while I was in our bedroom making up our new sleep number bed, Deacon showed supreme word recognition skills! Now, I believe this happened earlier, but it was iffy...Tonight's example is solid.

Earlier Example: Deacon and I were playing on the ground. Toys were everywhere. We were watching Praisebaby and an elephant came on the screen. So I say to Deacon, "Where is your elephant?" He turns around and looks right at his stuffed elephant. So, that example is shaky...but then tonight...

Tonight's Example: Clayton is playing with Deacon on the ground. His toys are around. He is sitting about 3 or 4 feet from his overturned basket of toys chewing on said elephant. Clayton says, "Where is the monkey?" Deacon looks left, he looks right, then he crawls to the basket, digs through other toys and picks out his monkey face potholder and holds it up to chew on it!!!!!!! Our baby understands language!!!! YAY!!!!

We probably say monkey about 500 times a day. He has monkeys all over his room, we saw them at the zoo, he loves his curious george doll, and I'm constatnly saying, " What sound does a monkey make? Eee-Eee-Ooo-Ooo"!

We also had fun tonight at music class at TCU. We started the Fall semester tonight and Aunt Kelly came with us. So, that was fun!

Harvard here we come! Probably with a major in Zoology!!

such a big boy!!!

Posting gets harder the older Deacon grows. But, he is asleep now so here is a little post. Deacon is experiencing all kinds of new things...He takes a bath without the baby bathtub. So now he can crawl over to the spout and try to drink from the bathtub faucet while getting a bath. He also tries to grab hold of the water as it pours out of the spout and looks puzzled as to why he can't grab hold of it and his hands just go through the water....Cute.

Also, we are working on phasing out the bottle and introducing the sippy cup. There are two schools of thought for this transition...Cold Turkey or Phase Out. I'm going with Phase Out. The past 2 days Deacon has only gotten his good morning bottle and his good night bottle. He has not gotten his noon or mid-afternoon bottles. Instead, we are helping him use a sippy cup. Also, tonight we order his first kids meal at dinner. He had the ham and cheese sandwich with applesauce. He almost ate the whole sandwich (w/o crust) and 1/2 of the applesauce. That is the most food I've ever seen him eat!!!

Also, his top right tooth is getting ready to poke through! We've been trying to brush his two bottom teeth everynight to get him in the habit. But then 2 nights ago, he was playing with his toothbrush and flailing it about and popped himself in the eye and hard. He squeezed his eyes shut, dropped the toothbrush, opened his eyes and started crying. His eye was a little red and he was ok. I of course googled 'baby eye first aid' and was trying to determine if we should rush him to the emergency room. But he is fine.

Here are the only pics I've managed to take recently.

This one is at Joe T. Garcia's when we met Nikki and Matt Savage (and more people) for dinner! He loves Nikki!!!

His shirt says "I'm with the band"...cute..

This one is what I came home to today. I left to go do a little solo shopping and on my return, Daddy and Deacon were passed out. It's hard work playing all day!!

3 months w/Deacon

still alive

it's been about 2 weeks since the last post and i have no good excuse. deacon is growing at warp speed and now he not only crawls everywhere (to the power outlets, to try and lick the power strips, to the bathroom), but now he also pulls up on everything and stands there (while trying to poke his eye out on every corner on every table we have). i'm considering wrapping our entire home in bubble wrap. i'll try to get some cute pics, but we've been just hanging out. let me see if i can post some of our picture people pics....they're blurry, but you get the idea...

Day 4 of Adventures.

Today we rode a choo-choo train and we went to eat dinner at the Gaylord. Deacon loved the train and I think he really just loves being around all the other kids. The sweet little girl riding in front of us kept trying to give him a used wet wipe...I just kept politely refusing to take it. Then she was drinking juice from a sippy cup and faced backwards so Deacon could see and he almost swiped her cup. I had him strapped in the bjorn just to be safe. He likes to dive and try to jump out of arms now and I didn't want any of that while we are cruising at 15 mph on the tracks. He loved it though. Fell asleep on the way home and didn't even wake up when I changed his diaper and put him in his crib and then still slept for 2 hours. Also, his new best friend (besides Deneise) is George, the curious monkey. I swear Deacon is actually talking George sometimes. It sounds so funny. Then Deacon will scream at George and try to eat his face....







Then he got to go to Wal-Mart with Daddy ( I only called once to check on them and ask that they get cotton balls). I stayed at home to shower. It's amazing how fast I can shower these days.

Then we went to the Gaylord Texan which is a big resort hotel in Grapevine. It was fun to eat overpriced food and then walk around and take pictures. The pictures really tell the story...

Mommy is tired.

Wow. Adventures make me tired. We didn't have any adventures today. We ran errands and napped and played on the floor and watched praisebaby videos. Don't worry, tomorrow we'll be back on schedule. We have a Doctor's appt in the morning (Hi Candi!!) and then we'll go ride the train at Trinity Park. Then tomorrow afternoon we'll go to the Gaylord and show Deacon just how big things are in Texas!!!

One thing we did do today was picked up his 9 month old pics. Wow, we've got to get this kid into modeling...check him out....our fave is the last one...he is so abercrombie in that shot...
(note--sorry if i broke copyright law by posting these professional pics and i've also cropped out his bottom for appropriate reasons...if you know me then i can show you the uncropped pics!!)

Day 2 of Adventure Week!

Yesterday wasn't too adventurous...SuperTarget isn't really anything new. But today was a whole new world...The Fort Worth Zoo is where we spent the morning. Wow....Deacon was having some real fun. We saw a ton of animals but the only ones I think he noticed were the big ones like Elephants, Giraffes, Rhinos and Monkeys that were playing around. I think he wanted to ride the elephants b/c when we tried to walk away he was climbing over my shoulder and screaming at them... Pretty funny stuff.

Deacon had a blast and I even went into the arachnid exhibit and the snake house....My skin is crawling just remembering what I saw in there...No me gusta snakes. My fave pic of course is the one of Deacon sleeping...It's exhausting being an adventurer. He passed out while we were walking out of the zoo and didn't even wake up when I moved him from stroller to car seat.

Then we went to music class. We love music class and I need to register for the fall semester today while I'm thinking about it. Daddy came to music class today to help take pictures and that made this class even more fun for Deacon!

Tomorrow we ride the Trinity park train and I'll try to keep him from jumping off! I should probably strap him in our bjorn for that adventure.

Thursday I think we will go to the Gaylord for dinner and to take fun pics and then Friday is NRH20...Here's praying for no rain on Friday!